Watchscapes Photo Essay: Hands-on with the Corum Golden Bridge Round

I’ve had the pleasure of wearing a Corum Golden Bridge Round 39 for about week, courtesy of Corum Singapore. We had a couple photo shoot for the Corum Golden Bridge Round 43mm (which we’ve reviewed here) and 39mm, the shoot was such a breeze because the watches were so easy to wear. Both models have relatively small wrists (5.25” for me and 6.5” for him) so we were pleasantly surprised to find that these watches fit really well. Keep reading to see this watch in various settings, and alongside the men’s Round 43mm.

The Corum Golden Bridge Round

As I wore the watch after the shoot, I was constantly distracted by it, in a good way of course. During quiet times, I would catch myself trying to get a good angle on those frosted trusses between the hesalite plates. Then I started noticing the neat setting of diamonds along the bezel, dial and bridge outlines.

The Case Dial Hands

The Round 39 comes in a whole suite of colours, which you can look up on their website. I got up close and personal with the pink and white versions.

In a more formal environment, the dazzling nature of the Golden Bridges shine.

Most Golden Bridge watches are tonneau or rectangular with minimal decorations to give better proportions to the linear movement. When in the round case, there’s plenty of space for decorations. Some thought that the decorative structure seems to dilute the emphasis of the linear movement, while others welcomed the extra details as more things for the eyes to feast on. The gold case of the 39mm also differs from the rest of the Golden Bridge collection, in that the edges are also of gold instead of sapphire. I was instantly jealous when I saw that Round 43 retained the sapphire case which allowed ample light and 360° admiration of the movement.

Targeted at ladies, a sure fire way to gain popularity would be to dip it in diamonds. In this case, diamonds are sprinkled to frame and create a sparkling stage for the movement which I talk about later. Although it’s dipped in diamonds, it remains intuitively legible. Could be the lack of second hands to minimize clutter. On occasions that call for such a glamorous piece, I wouldn’t need to know the time to the exact second, so the lack of a second hand didn’t bother me one bit.

The Movement

The movement C0113 has been perfected and presented in many versions of Golden Bridges for more than 3 decades. Unique to the Round 39 is that the bridge is now horizontally placed in the case, which places the crown at the conventional 3 o’clock position. I tend to find this a more user-friendly placement of the crown, or maybe that’s a personal preference out of habit.

The movement is displayed as a straight bridge with the entire power train laid out. Photo by Sharon Tan.

As with all other Golden Bridges, the finishing on the movement is beautiful. The base plates are hand engraved in 18K gold. Words cannot describe what an aesthetically intricate yet simple movement this is. It has a power reserve of 40 hours, but I never fully wound it because I like the process of manually winding it and correcting the time every morning. I love watching the little gears click as I wind it, and how the clutch switches the gear system when I pull the crown out to adjust the time.

Conclusion

The Golden Bridge Round works equally well in casuals as it does with more formal outfits.

It was difficult to part with this watch. Being such a fancy piece, I felt obliged to wear it to equally fancy restaurants and parties. Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to schedule enough of such events for the time that it was with me. It would have been an awesome watch to wear at dinner places, or networking sessions, it’s a conversation starter for ladies and men alike. Even then, it did not lessen the joy of wearing this pretty watch around. The watch was still suitable in laid back places like cafés, beer gardens and even with a live hen as photographed.

But if you ask me if I were to get this piece for myself, I probably would say no at this point in time. My personal collection is rather basic at this point and there are many other watches I would love to own. Despite Corum probably having monopoly on the linear movement, there are endless options at the price point of SGD 85,000. But I am sure many other ladies and couple will find this the perfect watch.